I remember when Hershey’s first introduced Hugs back in 1993, where I was about 10 years old. I have always been a lover of white chocolate, so the idea of getting it in Hershey’s Kisses was so appealing to me. Sadly my mom could not be persuaded to by them. I assure you I tried to change her mind!

The Hugs were one of the first combined Kisses, two flavors or chocolate combinations in one. Out of the wrapper they’re a pretty white chocolate base that’s striped, or “hugged”, with milk chocolate. I was interested in giving them a try again for a few reasons. The main two were I wanted to see how the flavor compared to my memory of them, and to see if they actually do taste of white chocolate. That’s a big test for me nowadays.

All I can say is they’re as attractive as I recall and they smell very sweet and milky in their bag.

The flavor is sweet and has that nice, white chocolate taste to it: slightly cocoa and very hard on the milkiness. The center has a chocolate center, so just as the white chocolate’s sweetness starts to wane and become nondescript, the flavor of the center brings it back to life. The texture is creamy and they’re cloying, but I also find them addictive.

As far as Kisses go, I certainly prefer these over the regular ones. Still, most of my attraction to them is from the intense sweetness, which I can find elsewhere with higher quality ingredients. Hugs are nice to revisit once every blue moon or so.

Heksehyl is another licorice I found out about from Cybele over at CandyBlog. Isn’t it wonderful how even we candy bloggers can learn about new things from each other? I often turn to her website for licorice recommendations, because I’m really a novice. I just know that I like the stuff.

The Heksehyl was an extremely lucky find in a random gourmet shop in the Caesar’s Pier during a recent trip to Atlantic City. I immediately recognized it and grabbed a bag and tore it open once I was outside the store. I was that excited to find them, as interesting licorice is not an easy thing to come across in my area.

They look like little tubes, with a brown creamy center. Surrounding that is a layer of black licorice and then a dusting of granular sugar to finish it off. The pieces are a good size and can be one or two bites depending on what you felt like.

The flavor is more of the molasses center than the licorice. It’s sweet, woodsy and rich, complimented by the herbal anise-like flavors of the licorice. The sugar coating gives it a bit of a gritty texture, but it’s a very pleasant one. The overall flavor isn’t so bold that it’s overpowering, so it’s easy to down quite a few before realizing it.

This big bag was gone within a week. I wish I could find it near me so I could buy more.

Now this is interesting, isn’t it? It’s Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (RPBC for short!) minis with chopped nuts. Another one of my random grocery store finds, and I had to get them. I admit, I was interested to see how they managed to get bits of chopped nuts into the minis. They’re small enough to begin with. This also seems like a pretty pathetic attempt on Hershey’s part to introduce a totally unnecessary variety twist on a classic.

I’m curious as to why they’d do this to the candy. More peanut flavor? New texture? I’m skeptical. I like RPBC to get a nutty flavor, yet no debris in my teeth. We’ll see how this goes down.

On the outside, these looks the same to the normal mini RPBC: size, smell, shape, flavor. Taking a bite it’s immediately apparent what this is like. This is the chunky peanut butter version to the normal “smooth” peanut butter of the normal ones. It’s just that simple. The flavor of the chocolate and peanut butter center is exactly the same, so I don’t feel like I need to re hash what that’s like. So if you’re a crunchy peanut butter person (survey says 40% of you prefer crunchy to smooth) then give these a go. It’s your favorite peanut butter texture now in your favorite peanut butter cup!

Theses are good product, yet extremely unnecessary in my mind. Only worth getting if you’re very OCD about your peanut butter texture.

I never understood the appeal of these. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of the M&Ms line. I just, never learned to love the Peanut variety.

These are one of the candies I remember best from my childhood. I didn’t eat them, though. These were a “must have” for family car trips and my whole family loved them except me. I always made a stink about it and therefore I got my own stash of Plain ones to have to myself. I hated the egg-like shape of them, the less chocolate and the garish yellow package. And the thing that really killed it for me? The nuts always managed to get stuck in my teeth, and I hated it. Therefore a lifetime of picky chocolate eating was born.

Now, realize that this is just my opinion that’s been built up with traumatic childhood experiences and personal preferences. It’s obvious that Peanut M&Ms are a quality product and are loved by practically everyone but myself. That’s part of what I find so interesting about candy.

These are large, in face they’re largest of all the M&Ms. The vary slightly in size and shape, since each is coating a fresh peanut. There’s a really satisfying crunch with these, first with the shell and second with the peanut. The flavor is more peanut focused than chocolate, which is why I think I didn’t like them very much as a kid. I wanted the chocolate baby! The peanuts have a very fresh and nutty flavor with a slightly saltiness that works well with the sweetness of the chocolate. There’s also a toasty flavor to the peanuts that I don’t get anywhere else, and it’s something I associate only with peanut M&Ms.

The dark chocolate variety is only slighty different from the regular milk chocolate one. The package has bands of purple on the top and bottom, so it’s easy to spot the difference on the shelves. The flavor is the same, just less sweet from the darker chocolate.

I don’t see these replacing my preference for Plain and Peanut Butter M&Ms, but I have made peace with them now after a long and silent treatment since childhood.

I’ve always been a fan of Torrone even though I haven’t been able to eat it with great frequency. It was always a treat that was in my household during Christmas, and only because my Dad is crazy for the stuff. He’s recieve a few bars as a gift and would be gone by the end of the day. I’d always be offered some, and as the years went by I grew to appreciate it more and more.

Now, the kind I’m referring to here in the Italian style torrone that’s made up of honey, sugar, eggs whites and nuts and is similar to a nougat. It can be fluffy or on the harder side, depending on what the maker had in mind. It really didn’t matter to me in the end, they all tasted good.

Now when I saw this bar I was immediately taken aback, because it’s labeled as a torrone, but it didn’t look like what I typically was familiar with. It looked more like a nut brittle than a torrone, so I was immensely interested. It’s also from Spain, so I was egar to see how the recipe changed to a different country. I nabbed the bar and did some researching once I was back home. I found a retailer for the El Lobo company, and this is the description on the website:

“El Lobo is a delicious almond and honey turrón candy by the makers of 1880. These candies are 50% smaller than the premium 1880 brand, and have a simpler recipe, which means you can enjoy real D.O. certified Spanish turrón at a less premium price.”

I can supplement that with:

“Incomparable Marcona almonds make up over 65% of this ‘suprema’ quality gourmet bar - the most that can be added before the bars start to fall apart! This ‘suprema’ quality gourmet bar is similar to traditional turrón except that it is made from caramelized sugar and whole fresh (unroasted) almonds, rather than honey and egg white of the traditional turrón.
The almonds are bound together with delicious dark caramel and sandwiched with super thin wafer. Truly the finest in the world. Made by hand in Alicante, Spain.”

What I bought was the almond brittle variety. The candy is gorgeous! The supermodel of candies. It has beautiful whole almonds, perfectly round and well shaped. They’re covered in a thick, slightly sticky hard sugar syrup, which gives them a dark roasted color, much like oil on well tanned skin. On the bottom there’s a light wafer to keep it from sticking to anything.

It feels heavy and well formed. The first bite took some working to break off, as I was trying to cleave off a bite without breaking the whole thing and hurting my teeth.

Oh, YUM! You get the wonderful, roasted nutty flavors of the whole almonds, a sweet, rich honey like flavor from teh syrup, and a good wafer-like blandness that keeps it from being overly sweet. This is good. On top of that the texture is great as the syrup is chewy and crispy at the same time. The almonds have a good meaty chew and it’s just stellar. My only complaint is that it sticks to your teeth a little too much and it’s not fun having to try and pick the pieces out.

Just goes to show that natural and simple can be very, very, very good.